Australian Empire Crumbling Down Quickly

The mighty Aussies are no longer that mighty, their domination over world cricket for the last decade and a half has officially ended. Ricky Ponting aka the George Bush of World Cricket has now realized that he is as good a captain as his team is or was. With two series defeats against India and South Africa, the confirmation has come that this current Australian team is quite a vulnerable opposition. They have suddenly forgotten how to wrap up victories when their opposition is on the mat. Take the case of India at Bangalore in the 1st Test (Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan defying them to force a draw) and that of South Africa’s in both the Tests at Perth (failing to defend a mammoth 418) and Melbourne (allowing SA in the first innings to get out of jail and take a lead) respectively which would support my views. It wasn’t long back that the Aussies would have converted even a sniff of a chance to clinch victories.

Many would say that the Australian domination over oppositions has been beaten black and blue because of the retirement of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne which is 100% right. These are two deadly bowlers who know how to plan and execute the downfall of each and every batsmen. The present bowling attack though lacks the vision of outsmarting the batsmen. The Captain - Ricky Ponting has been left to ponder about the over rates and how to stop the boundaries. The opposition batsmen have understood that if they can see off some 40 overs or so then the Australian attacks turns out to be very flat. The opposition bowlers on the other hand know that they have to get rid of Hayden and Ponting cheaply and then there isn’t much quality left. On the batting front, the Australians are missing the rescue acts of Adam Gilchrist that would blast them out of trouble with his carefree batting at no.7. Read More…